For six years, Sam Summers, owner of First
Fleet Concerts, has been promoting concerts
from Omaha, to Des Moines, to Iowa City and
back. Now he has one to call his own as he prepares
to open Wooly’s this week in Des Moines’ East
Village.

“I’d been thinking about doing this for a while
but was waiting for the right time to do it.
Then this opportunity came along,” said Summers,
28, of West Des Moines.

Wooly’s, 504 East Locust St., is located in
a building owned by Kirk Blunck. The site is
the former home of a Woolworth’s department
store (hence Wooly’s name), a church and the
short-lived 504 Club. Summers said the wooden
flooring, plaster walls and other original architectural
features will remain the same, though some renovations
are being made.

“It’s already pretty sweet,” he said, “but we’re
going to make some changes because we’re going
to be doing a lot of production with lights,
sound and amenities for the bands.”

Summers decided to open the mid-sized concert
venue that features a seating capacity of 683
people, a large stage, a full-service bar and
a lobby with a box office with help from two
of his friends in the music business, Rafe Mateer
and Josh Ivey. Mateer, 36, is part-owner of
the Blue Moose Tap House in Iowa City, a venue
where Summers has been booking shows for a few
years, and has 10 years of experience in bar
management and ownership. Ivey, 27, is the manager
of the Blue Moose who Summers credits for transforming
the nightclub from a typical college bar to
a respected concert venue with two stages where
artists like Mates of State and New Found Glory
have performed.

“They both know what they are doing, and they
wanted to do something in Des Moines. They’ve
been looking at places to open a club here for
about a year-and-a-half,” Summers said. “I really
like these guys, and we each excel in different
areas of the business. It allows me to continue
to focus on booking shows here and in other
venues and markets.”

Summers, who launched First Fleet Concerts in
2006 after graduating from Iowa State University,
has booked concerts in nearly every live music
venue in Greater Des Moines from the Vaudeville
Mews to Wells Fargo Arena and will continue
to do so, noting “every venue has a purpose.”
He is expanding his operations to include bookings
in Minnesota and Illinois and wants Wooly’s
to be like the Slowdown in Omaha or the First
Avenue Club in Minneapolis.

“Wooly’s will allow me to bring more cool indie
shows here that I hadn’t been able to do in
the past like The White Panda or the Punch Brother.
They’re awesome, and they play to capacity crowds,”
he said. “Or if The Black Keys wanted to play
a small venue, they could come here.”

Summers said he plans to focus on booking indie-rock
and singer-songwriter-rock acts into Wooly’s,
but he is not opposed to booking other genres
of music.

“I’m sure there will be some country and other
things to offer. I want the shows to be sold
out,” he said. “We’re pretty excited about the
whole thing.” CV